{"id":1171,"date":"2021-04-07T21:12:09","date_gmt":"2021-04-07T18:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/does-faith-increase-or-decrease\/"},"modified":"2021-04-07T21:12:09","modified_gmt":"2021-04-07T18:12:09","slug":"does-faith-increase-or-decrease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/does-faith-increase-or-decrease\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith: Does It Increase and Decrease?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"road_nature\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Those who declare Islam without observing the good deeds and refraining from misdeeds are with weak iman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Iman<\/i> (faith) has been linguistically defined as believing<\/a> and confidence. Termly, it is defined as the expression of the tongue, the conviction of the heart and the work of the organs, and it increases and decreases. The expression of the tongue refers to the Shahadah <\/a>(Declaration of Faith<\/a>; no one is worthy of worship except Allah, and Muhammad is Allah\u2019s Messenger)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The conviction of the heart is to believe in Allah<\/a>, His Angels, His Books<\/a>, His Prophets<\/a>, the Last Day <\/a>and the Divine Decree<\/a>. The work of the organs means the observance of good deeds and the abstention from misdeeds. This is the position of Ahl As-Sunnah Wal-Jama`ah<\/i> (the followers of Sunnah and Muslim community) regarding the concept of iman<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Ibn Taymiyyah mentioned in his book Al-Fatwa<\/i> that Imam Ash-Shafi`i said, \u201cThere has been an ijma`<\/i> (unanimous agreement) among the companions of the Prophet, their followers and our scholars that iman<\/i> is a declaration, work and conviction and that none of the three suffices for the others.\u201d(Ibn Taymiyyah, Majmu` Al-Fatawa<\/i>)<\/p>\n

Ahl As-Sunnah<\/i> view that iman<\/i> can be increased or decreased. It increases by doing good deeds<\/a>, acts of worship and contemplating on the Qur\u2019an<\/a>, rulings of Islam, hadiths<\/em> and the creation of Allah, and decreases by misdeeds, following evil desires and Satan and negligence of reciting the Qur\u2019an.<\/p>\n

Narrated Abu Hurairah: \u201cThe Prophet (peace be upon him) said, \u201cIman<\/i> consists of more than sixty branches, and modesty is a branch of faith.\u201d (Al-Bukhari)<\/p>\n

This meaningful and highly expressive hadith<\/i><\/a> is one of the greatest hadiths<\/i> <\/a>of Islam. It deals with the concept of iman<\/i> and highlights one of its parts, namely modesty.<\/p>\n

The Prophet shows us that the term of iman<\/i> is not restricted to beliefs but it includes actions as well. He informs us that iman<\/i> consists of more than sixty parts and it includes sayings and deeds, as mentioned in other narrations of the hadith.<\/p>\n

Yet, someone may say, \u201cThe Prophet was asked \u2018what is iman<\/i>?\u2019 in the well-known hadith of Jibreel (Angel Gabriel) and he restricted the meaning of iman<\/i> to belief.\u201d Sheikh Ibn `Uthaimin clarifies this by saying, \u201cIman<\/i> in the sense of belief is based on six principles, which are mentioned in the hadith of Jibril (peace be upon him), when he questioned the Prophet, who said: \u201ciman<\/i> means to believe in Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers, the Last Day, and the Divine Decree, both good and bad.\u201d (Al-Bukhari and Muslim)<\/p>\n

Yet, the broad meaning of iman<\/i> includes good deeds of various kinds and it has seventy-odd branches. In this context, Allah called prayer iman<\/i> in His saying:<\/p>\n

And never would Allah have caused you to lose your iman. Indeed Allah is, to the people, Kind and Merciful. <\/strong>(Al-Baqarah<\/a> 2:143)<\/p>\n

The scholars of Tafsir (Qur\u2019an Exegesis) said: \u201ciman<\/i>\u201d here means prayer, because the companions used to pray towards Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa before they were commanded to face the Ka`bah<\/a> in their prayers<\/a>.\u201d (3)<\/sup><\/p>\n

The hadith<\/i> at hand proves the stance of Ahl Al-Sunnah, that is iman<\/em> is not only restricted to beliefs<\/a> but it includes deeds. In the hadith, the Prophet mentions that modesty, which is the work of organs, is a branch or part of faith.<\/p>\n

Also, there is another narration of the hadith<\/i> that the Prophet said, \u201cIman has sixty odd or seventy odd branches. The uppermost of all these is the Testimony of Faith \u201cLa ilaha illallah\u201d (there is no true god except Allah) while the least of them is the removal of the harmful objects from the road. And modesty<\/a>\u00a0is a branch of Iman.\u201d (Muslim)<\/p>\n

Thus, it considered the Declaration of Faith and the work of organs, represented in the removal of harmful objects from the road and modesty<\/a>, as branches and parts of iman<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Actually, this is an extremely important principle that should be understood and taken into consideration. There are those who claim that pronouncing the Testimony of Faith is enough to be a believer deserving the Mercy of Allah and His Paradise. This hadith refutes these false claims, because a Muslim has to work hard to get closer to Allah by means of acts of worship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Muslim with perfect faith<\/a> is the one who declares Islam by the tongue, believes in Allah, His Messenger and what they told and commanded, and performs the good deeds and refrains from misdeeds. Those who declare Islam without observing the good deeds and refraining from misdeeds<\/a> are with weak iman<\/i> and are treading the ways of Satan and hell-fire.<\/p>\n

_________________________<\/p>\n

[ica_orginalurl]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does outline one\u2019s true faith? How does a Muslim describe himself as a believer? Where does true faith begin and end? What does iman (faith) mean in the first place?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[465,2],"tags":[1674,1675,2503,1679,984,5715,968,5716,5717,5718,5719,523,1656,5720,167,988,1682,2329,246,1685,116,5721,5722,1686,649,5723,221,1690,994,222,995,2508,312,5724,95,5725,551],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-of-faith","category-new-muslims","tag-accepting-islam","tag-allahs-greatest-gift","tag-angels","tag-become-true-muslim","tag-become-true-muslims","tag-believe-in-allah","tag-believing","tag-books","tag-branch-of-iman","tag-confidence","tag-conviction-of-heart","tag-declaration-of-faith","tag-divine-decree","tag-does-faith-increase-and-decrease","tag-featured","tag-follow-islam","tag-followers-of-the-prophet","tag-get-closer-to-allah","tag-gods-blessings","tag-gratitude-to-allah","tag-grow-in-faith","tag-hadith-of-the-prophet","tag-increase-faith","tag-islam-is-the-greatest-blessing-from-god","tag-islamic-lifestyle","tag-meaning-in-iman","tag-modesty","tag-muslim-behaviour","tag-muslim-identity","tag-muslim-ummah","tag-original-gift","tag-prophets","tag-teachings-of-islam","tag-the-last-day","tag-the-prophet-muhammad","tag-true-faith-in-god","tag-western-muslims"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Faith-Does-It-Increase-and-Decrease.jpg?fit=1000%2C667&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ZvKT-iT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quran-for-all.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}